Merchant Ivory

Merchant/Ivory (Stephen Soucy, 2023) The name of "Merchant Ivory" has long been prejudiciously associated with a certain type of Oscar-bait movie, long on dialogue, high on landscapes, and attracting English actors of such a high caliber that they usually end up on Oscar short-lists for their performances. They have such a high pedigree that you'd never know that the films were lower budgeted than what was evident on-screen, and that the films were made by the skin of the teeth of Merchant Ivory Productions, sometimes risking scuttling the projects before they could be finished, and leaving the actors with a malevolent "Never again..." ("It required an immense amount of stamina" says Emma Thompson "to work for Merchant Ivory") only to be entranced, seduced, cajoled and convinced by either Merchant or Ivory to come back for another go-'round. And despite suspicions that they were being flim-flammed (once again), they did come back. Because to be in a "Merchant Ivory" film was a prestige gig.

The team (which wasn't just producer Ismael Merchant and director James Ivory, but screenwriter/novelist Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and composer Richard Robbins) wasn't afraid to buck current movie trends, go its own way, and chart its own course, self-assured that there was no down-side to going high-brow. And the new documentary Merchant Ivory quite giddily tells the story of the mess in the kitchen that provides the elegant meal. "It'll probably be something you're wildly proud of" says costumer Jenny Beavan of each MP project, "but...."

The beginning of the story involves the meeting of James Ivory (from Klamath Falls, Oregon) and Ismail Merchant (born in Mumbai—although it was Bombay at the time) at the Indian Consulate in New York, where there was a reception for a documentary Ivory had made in India. The two became partners, personally and professionally, their first project together an adaptation of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's "The Householder"—her husband told her not to get involved with them, but she became enchanted with Merchant's Bali-hoo and "I liked the razzmatazz." It was not the smoothest first film of the partnership as the money ran out, but Ivory hated shooting in the Delhi heat, and when it came time to edit the film, they turned to Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray to put it together. Merchant sold it to Columbia Pictures "by some miracle" and used the profits to make their next film Shakespeare Wallah.

They made four films in India and then went international with some weird choices: Savages, The Wild Party, but then settled down with such high-brow fare as 1979's The Europeans, 1983's adaptation of Jhabvala's Heat and Dust, and 1984's The Bostonians, until things exploded (mind you, it was an elegant, mannered explosion) with 1985's A Room With a View, which not only received tremendous critical acclaim and great box office, but also was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. Rather than sign with any studio, Merchant Ivory chose to stay independent and in 1987 took the company public.

Produced by Cohen Media Group (which now owns the entire Merchant Ivory catalog) Merchant Ivory tells the story of the film-making team: Ismael the producer, James the director, but also, essentially and unquestionably, in what one of the participants calls "the Merchant Ivory vortex," Ruth the writer and Richard the composer. The four of them, each with a different personality—Ismael voluble and hyperbolic, James "quietly determined," and "unneurotic," Ruth the arbiter of taste and Richard the musical soul—formed a social and working club-house of essential ingredients, each with their specialty, but in close collaboration that influenced their projects and shaped the direction of the company and the films produced by it.

It's divided into six chapters, but, like the company itself, doesn't seem to adhere to each chapter's subject matter, cascading into other stories that spring to mind, but essentially telling the overview of the story in a chronological order, with particular asides for projects that garnered particular attention. They are:
 

Chapter One The Wandering Company: how two opposites in temperament and origins joined forces as independent film-makers—each had made documentaries by that time—and as a couple and began making relatively inexpensive films in India, the first of which brought Ruth Prawer Jhabvala into the mix (she adapted her own novel for them) as Muse, Arbiter of Taste, and the Book-Cracker, who would boil things down to essentials and if something wasn't up to her standards, she'd fix it.

Merchant's first visa to the U.S.: notice how he scratched out "Profession"

 

Chapter Two: the Mystic Masseuse: the story of Ismael Merchant, a man of Big Dreams and wide contradictions—gay, Muslim, a wheeler-dealer and con-man ("Yeah, sure, he was" says Ivory), extravagant in his ideas and juggling deals in order to achieve them, but never selling out to a studio in order to maintain independence over his company's work. Crew members talk of his being on the set constantly imploring Ivory—"Shooot, Jim! Shooot!"—shaking their head in astonishment "This rascal has done it again!" Hopkins ruefully smiles as he says "He can talk the birds out of the trees."

 

A Room with a View (1985) A water-shed moment for the company when international success comes to them after years of defying expectations and scraping by financing their films. Their dedication to authors like Henry James and E.M.Forster pays off and brings them critical and audience acclaim as well as much attention from the many awards groups. They are still financially rocky, but are no less dedicated to their favorite authors.

Chapter III: The Unspeakable Vice of the Greeks James Ivory, being the last survivor of the Merchant Ivory core, talks about his growing up as something of an outsider—adopted, intellectual, closeted—but collaborators and actors talk about how he's the least problematic director they've ever worked with and he comes across as easy-going, honest, unapologetic, with no regrets and certainly no resentfulness.

Maurice (1987) Ivory wanted to make an adaptation of Forster's posthumous novel of homosexuality and class, which Merchant had qualms about—after the success of A Room with a View, why risk it—but "the vortex" went ahead with it with Jhabvala begging off, calling it "sub-Forster" but coming back to fix a crucial plot-point.

Chapter IV Only Connect The film looks at the life and accomplishments of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, winner of the Booker Prize for her own work, and her essential partnership with Merchant Ivory—she garnered the most Oscars for her work of the group (along with the costume departments) and her ability to write illuminating dialog for any character, no matter how repressed—and her screenplays are notably free of descriptions—made her the foundation of so much of what was great about Merchant Ivory.

Howard's End 1992 It was Jhabvala who raised the challenge to the team that this Forster work was "a mountain you have to climb" and the film garnered multiple Oscar nominations and an Oscar for Emma Thompson and she and Helena Bonham Carter and Samuel West go into vivid detail about the challenges and memories of working on the film, which was immediately followed up by

 

The Remains of the Day 1993 Most of the people being interviewed agree that this was the apex of the Merchant Ivory group and quite a few focus on Anthony Hopkins' performance for special mention, with Thompson calling out a particular scene with how Hopkins set up the tone and flabbergasted her with his performance. At one point Hugh Grant says "If someone said to me show me perfect film acting, I'd show them Tony Hopkins in Remains of the Day and, in fact, The Remains of the Day is one of the best films I've ever seen let alone been in.

 

Chapter V You Mean a Great Deal to this House This segment focuses on the life and career of Richard Robbins, who was something of a musical savant and began composing for the Merchant Ivory films with The Europeans and worked on every score up until The White Countess in 2005. As is stated in the film, his was probably the most notable director/composer collaborations since Herrmann and Hitchcock or Rota and Fellini.

Chapter VI Head and Heart The last segment talks about the Best of Times, The Worst of Times: Merchant Ivory began to work with big-time studios and working with bigger budgets, which made what they could do a bit easier, but the team began to splinter—Merchant began directing his own films (with Ivory ever-present as an advisor)—and then, time took its toll: Merchant died in 2005, Robbins in 2012, and Jhabvala in 2013. 

 

Only Ivory survives to tell the tale, and he's still working—he's the oldest recipient of an Oscar for his screenplay of Call Me By My Name, directed a film in 2022 (at the age of 94) and he's executive produced four films that are coming out in the next year. It's a fascinating story, with ample amounts of clips, and interviews with some of the finest raconteurs in entertainment. And it does exactly what Cohen Media Group wants it to do—it makes you want to seek out these films and the books they're based on.

Don't Make a Scene: Battleground

The Story: Today's lecture: Know your enemy.

I may be what Trump calls "an enemy of the people," but I actually find more of those on social media scrolling though videos. It's absolutely true that the former Soviet Union, China and who-knows-who-else is putting stuff out there to "divide-and-conquer." It's the well-known tactic of dis-information and it's been around as long as there've been spies. But, now it's just getting dumb and about the stupidest of subjects. They can be as innocuous as arguing about the latest Star Wars movie (that was a classic...and the follow-up video where the guy protested in his thick Georgian accent "Me? I'm a Russian bot?" Bozhe moi!) or in the last presidential campaign there was a hilarious one concerning the growing trend of liberals voting for Trump because of the Left's bad attitude towards conservatives—the highlight of it was an African-American "actor" (he said) who was really disappointed in how Hollywood "treated Kelsey Grammer."

Huh? What did that have to do with the cost of tea? Sure, Grammer wasn't working (this was before he re-booted "Frasier" btw) but his residuals for the umpteen years of "Frasier"—in which HE was the executive producer—hadn't run out, I'm sure. And if he was tight for cash it was because he picked the wrong women to marry...and then divorce. But, this guy on the video was SO concerned about how Hollywood "treated Kelsey Grammer." It just didn't compute. That is, unless you weren't living in this country and you fact-checked that one of the most popular shows of the last decade was "Frasier" and that actor wasn't working then and doing a few politically right-leaning roles. Nobody really cared...but somebody thought we cared because we Americans are such fans, such gossipy little culture-vultures. I laughed. I laughed a lot.

 

It was stupid. It was a "plant". It had such an obvious mis-reading of our culture that it couldn't come from around these parts. I dismissed it but I wondered how many didn't. The ones who bought it hook, line, and sinker. Look, if something doesn't strike you as making sense, don't buy it. It's okay to be an idiot. Just don't be a "useful idiot."

Which brings to mind this scene from Battleground. And how loony this stuff can get. Two groups of American soldiers...but, they don't know that...walk the extra thousand yards to be sure ("Just how American ARE you?") because it's life-or-death out there. And (wouldn't you know it?) pop-cult is the verifiable coin of the realm.

 

So (as they used to say on what TV show "comrades?"), "let's be careful out there."

 

Oh. And...Kelsey? Nice to see you working again (during the Biden Administration? Co-incidence?).

 

The Set-Up: December, 1944. The 2nd Squad, 3rd Platoon, Company I, 3rd Battalion, 327th Glider Infantry Regiment are fighting what they don't know will be called "The Battle of the Bulge" (who cares what you call it besides "miserable?"). It's just snowed making things more difficult and the Germans fascists are in close proximity—in fact, we've seen a squad of those Nazi bastards already sneak by our defenses—and everybody's being extremely careful. Even grunts like PFC Holley (Van Johnson), Private Jarvess (John Hodiak), and Private Roderigues (Ricardo Montalban).

 

Who Goes There?

 

HOLLEY: What's the... 

HOLLEY: ...password?

MAJOR: Texas. 

MAJOR: Keep them covered. They may be German.

HOLLEY: Any line on these woods, Major?

MAJOR: I didn't hear the countersign. 

HOLLEY: Oh. (huh) Leaguer. Texas Leaguer. 

MAJOR: Will this road take us to...

MAJOR: ...Third Bat headquarters?

HOLLEY: Straight ahead.

MAJOR: Get going.

HOLLEY: Just a minute. What is a Texas leaguer, Major?

MAJOR: How's that?

HOLLEY: I said what's a Texas leaguer?

SERGEANT: It's some kind of baseball term.

JARVESS: What kind?

SERGEANT: A safe hit just over the infielder's head... 

JARVESS: Nobody asked you. How'd the Dodgers make out?*

MAJOR: Who's your commanding officer, soldier?

HOLLEY: Whoever he is, he knows how the Dodgers made out.

JARVESS: Let's see your dog tags.

G.I.: What? 

JARVESS: C'mon, we're not taking any chances. 

HOLLEY: Sprechen sie Deutsch?**

MAJOR: What is this? 

HOLLEY: Was ist "dye" name?

MAJOR: What kind of nonsense...

HOLLEY: Schnell! Schnell! 

HOLLEY: Name, name! Sprechen sie!

SERGEANT: Drop those rifles.

SERGEANT: You! Who's Betty Grable going with?

RODRIGUES: Cesar Romero.

DRIVER: Shut up. Who's the Dragon Lady?

HOLLEY: She's in Terry and the Pirates.

SERGEANT: What's a...

SERGEANT: ...hotrod?

HOLLEY: A hopped-up jalopy.

DRIVER: Hello Joe, what do you know?

HOLLEY: Just got back from a vaudeville show.

HOLLEY (laughs): I guess they're okay.

MAJOR (sarcastically): Thank you, Sergeant. 

HOLLEY: PFC, Major. 

HOLLEY: As in Praying For Civilian. That's why I believe in being careful. May I suggest, sir, that... 

HOLLEY: ...you study up on baseball? 

MAJOR: I guess I'd better. 

MAJOR: And by the way, 

MAJOR: you might tell your buddy that Cesar Romero is out. 

MAJOR: She's married to Harry James.

 

Battleground (1949)

 

Words by Robert Pirosh

 

Pictures by Paul Vogel and William A. Wellman.

Battleground is available on DVD and Blu-Ray from M-G-M Home Entertainment.

* Pretty darned good, if you ask me!

 

** I took German in High School and it's so rusty it squeaks, but I can tell you he's saying "You speak German?" then Van Johnson mispronounces "Was ist die name?" ("What is your name?") because the German word "die" is pronounced "dee" not "dye" then "Fast! Fast! Your name! Say it!"